"Good Times, Great Oldies - Cruisin' 100"
Dear Diary: Entry Five - Cruisin' 100.
by Scott Herman - photography by Cole Herman
I'm getting old. And despite the obligatory stereotypes one may assign to aging, such as marriage, fatherhood or even the fact that within 30 seconds of arriving home from work, or anywhere really, there's an immediacy to swap out my sneakers for L.L. Bean slippers, I know something else is the reason. Wait. That's a perfect example of yet more unintentional indictment. Yes, I called them sneakers. Dammit! I used to think L.L. Bean was a fucking comic strip. Who am I kidding?! I enjoyed their whole catalog (audible sigh). The 'New England Breakfast Tote' was lovely. But believe it or not, this isn't even the point. Either is my male pattern baldness. Besides, who hasn't tried to recapture youth's waning embrace by attempting to cut a professional wrestling promo in the shower when no one's around to hear it. And even if my wife 'accidentally' heard it, I'm sure it would still seem more acceptable than watching wall-to-wall coverage of Winter Storm Seneca on The Weather Channel - with the sound off, right?
The seeds were planted innocently enough while in my Dad's F-150 on a trip downtown to have a few beers at The American Legion awhile back. He was listening to WSWR, Good Times, Great Oldies - Cruisin' 100, which wasn't out of the ordinary. At the time, I arbitrarily resigned to the fact that the old man mostly enjoyed 60's music because if was popular when he was younger. We fast-forward to the following summer where I'm preparing for the arduous process of staining our deck.
Nevermind the recurring show of middle-aged solidarity with the other browbeaten and balding homeowners in the neighborhood, because the singular focus was now the music. What would I choose to represent how much cooler I was than the other parents? Surely the 15 and 16-year old kids within earshot would soon gather near the fence to pay homage. It was A Tribe Called Quest, the Midnight Marauders album. I had previously begged my wife to both download and burn the CD for me via her iTunes account. I now found myself frantically searching for that disc to placate my thirst for early 90's Hip-hop, that for which I listened to "when... I... was..... younger (the words mouthed ever slower as they exited my lips)!" And there in the midst of the intense heat, sweat, and Olympic 'Canyon Brown' Toner/Exterior Sealant-induced haze, it hit me like a thunderbolt. The stream of consciousness was overwhelming:
"Why are you listening to an actual CD?" "Are you using a CD 'boom-box'?" "Did
you actually buy six D batteries to run that contraption outside?" "Is this your
representation of 'wireless'?" "Did your wife burn that CD because you don't know how?"
"If someone gave you the winning numbers to next week's Powerball, would you even
know how to buy music on iTunes?" "Would you use Internet Explorer to conduct your
search?" "Do you still have an active AOL account?" "Is that a valid Blockbuster Rewards
card in your wallet?" "Is that a velcro wallet?" "You secretly wish you could sport that
sweet, bleached-out ponytail from '96 again, don't you?" "If it was socially acceptable to
sell your family sedan for a shit-brown '85 Chevette with a 2x4 holding up the driver's seat
and a 12-inch subwoofer in the trunk, you'd do it in a second, wouldn't you?" "Did you
abandon your groceries and storm out of a supermarket in Toledo, Ohio shouting curse
words to yourself like a 77-year old man because you were too stressed and flustered to
finish filling out that Giant Eagle Advantage Card application?"
Now bear in mind this wasn't some bizarre realization that I was becoming my father, but rather a fortuitous event. At that exact moment, I was actually peering toward a nightmarish vision of the future. In exactly 13 years from now, I would be arguing the compositional merits of A Tribe Called Quest with my 17-year old son after hearing the contemporary garbage he was listening to in his room. I would get overly animated in explaining how I would take early 90's Hip-hop against any current genre, and refuse to give his music even the slightest consideration. "Make sure to turn it down and finish that homework, young man", I quipped. "Now, De La Soul - that was a band", I would mutter to myself while heading back toward the kitchen. My wife would simply shake her head in embarassment as I finished the walk of shame. A literal rumble of thunder would snap me back to the scene of the unstained spindles spanning the length of the back-half of the deck.
As I scrambled to quickly cover what I had finished of the deck with some shoddy tarps, twine and bungee cords to avoid the impending rainstorm, I began to come to grips with my current situation. I would get angry every time I saw some kid wearing skinny jeans and throwback Jordan's. I would feel socially inadequate every single time I visited the Short North. I would continue pretending to care what locally brewed IPA was recently awarded, 'Best in the Capital City', and begrudgingly order a PBR anyway. I would then immediately remember that PBR is now a hipster beer and get angry again. I would happily drive my 2004 Toyota Camry with a 12-inch subwoofer in the trunk. I would openly reminisce about how awesome it was to wear a fluroescent green pager in 1997, and wish that people could still 'hit me on the hip'. My "getting pulled over by the Kentucky State Highway Patrol's SWAT Team at gunpoint on the way home from Spring Break" 'story' would be instant fodder for communal eye-rolling at it's very mention. I would continue to complain about the Bush presidency. And later tonight, I will ask my wife, "What is a Bon Iver?"
